1 Fanam East India Company imitation

The VOC minted these fanam imitations for use on the Malabar Coast, where indigenous fanam coinage dominated small-denomination trade. Rather than impose a foreign currency, the Dutch deliberately copied local types to ensure acceptance in bazaar transactions — a pragmatic concession to commercial reality that the more rigid Portuguese administration had largely refused to make. Production spanned nearly a century and a half across VOC facilities at Cochin.